


Waking Up

by flawedamythyst



Series: The Monster In The Mind Palace [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 23:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5023996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wakes up from the dream.</p><p>This will make no sense at all if you haven't played my game <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5024056">The Monster In The Mind Palace</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Up

John woke up with a start, sitting bolt upright and forcing out loud breaths.

What the hell had that been?

It had felt a hundred percent real, and yet he must have been dreaming. Surely? There was no way he'd spent the night wandering around inside Sherlock's mind.

He remembered the way the monster's teeth had gleamed as he'd swallowed down Sherlock's memories. What if that thing was still in there?

He'd promised Sherlock that he'd wake him up. He got up and was halfway downstairs before he wondered if he wasn't over-reacting. It must just have been a dream, after all. Was he really going to wake Sherlock up over a dream?

Maybe Sherlock would already be awake. It was still early but it was morning, and Sherlock generally didn't waste any more time in bed than he had to.

When John got down to the kitchen though, Sherlock's bedroom door was still shut and there was no noise from the other side. He hesitated, fingers resting on the wood. What should he do? Wake Sherlock up and then be forced to explain that he'd done it because he'd promised a dream version of Sherlock that he would? He'd never hear the end of it.

And yet, he couldn't just leave Sherlock asleep, not when the memory of his expression as John had jumped in the dream was still blazed across his mind. If he didn't wake him up, he was just going to stand here, worrying that Sherlock was still trapped in there with Moriarty. He couldn't do that. It may just have been a dream, but he'd promised.

In the end, he compromised. He flicked the kettle on and stomped over to Sherlock's door as loudly as he could in bare feet and threw it open.

“You up? Want some tea?” he asked in a loud voice.

Sherlock was still asleep. He sat up in a flurry of limbs and duvet, hair everywhere. “What?”

“Tea?” asked John again. “Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were asleep.”

Sherlock stared at him for a long moment, then his eyes dipped to focus on the t-shirt John had worn to bed last night. He suddenly realised it was the one Moriarty had eaten in the dream. Did that mean anything other than that it had been floating at the top of his subconscious while his sleeping mind had been casting around for props?

Sherlock blinked. “Tea,” he repeated. “Yes.” There was a flicker and he visibly woke up properly. “Yes, excellent plan.”

John nodded and turned back to the kitchen to get a second mug. There: job done. Sherlock was awake and yet didn't think John was an idiot who believed his dreams were real.

The kettle boiled and he poured the water into mugs as Sherlock shuffled out of his bedroom and collapsed into a chair, loosely wrapped in a dressing gown.

“Sleep well?” John asked as casually as he could.

There was a pause long enough to make him glance over his shoulder. Sherlock was given him a narrow-eyed look.

“Apparently,” he said.

Right. Well, that wasn't the kind of question Sherlock was really keen on answering at the best of times. John bought the tea over to the table, slid one mug to Sherlock and sat down opposite him.

“And you?” asked Sherlock. “How did you sleep?”

John's blinked. Sherlock had never, to his recollection, ever shown any interest in how John had slept, and had certainly never asked about it in such an interrogatory voice.

Sherlock was staring at him as if the fate of the universe was resting on his answer. A strange, giddy feeling settled in John's stomach. What if it hadn't been a dream? Or, at least, not solely his dream? What if that version of his bedroom really was at the heart of Sherlock's Mind Palace?

“I had weird dreams,” he offered.

“Did you?” breathed Sherlock, leaning forward slightly.

Oh god. John cleared his throat and cast around for something to say that wasn't _Oh god, please tell me you remember that kiss too_.

“Hey, I don't suppose you remember the main themes of _To Kill A Mockingbird_ , do you?” he asked.

Sherlock startled as if he'd been electrocuted. His eyes went large and his mouth fell open. “I-” He paused. “I don't know. Something to do with how evil birds are?”

Hope rose in John's chest but he crushed it back down. He only had memories of a dream to say Sherlock had ever known that, let alone that he'd now lost it due to a nightmare monster who ate his memories. “That's the theme of Alfred Hitchcock's _The Birds_ ,” he corrected.

“Ah,” said Sherlock, slowly. He took a sip of tea that looked rather forced.

John gave up on any hope of subtlety or not looking like an idiot. He needed to ask something that Sherlock definitely should know. “Whereabouts is the femur?” he asked, thinking about the discarded pile of bones that Moriarty had reduced the skeleton in the Anatomy room to.

Sherlock froze. His eyes darted from left to right and back again as he searched his mind. “I don't-” He started, then stared at John with panic. “I don't know.”

Oh god. It had been real.

John leaned forward, reaching out across the table for Sherlock but keeping himself from actually grabbing hold of him. “Sherlock, do you have two different rooms dedicated to me in your Mind Palace?”

Sherlock gaped at him. “Oh god,” he said. “It was real.”

His eyes flickered back down to John's t-shirt. “I really have lost some of my memories.”

That was not the part of the dream that John was interested in focusing on right now. He stood up and moved around the table to stand in front of Sherlock, who turned in his chair to face him.

“I don't know what memory Moriarty destroyed when he consumed this t-shirt,” he started.

“Me neither,” interrupted Sherlock, in a strained voice. “I have absolutely no idea what it was, only that it was important.” He took a deep breath and met John's eyes with resolution. “Everything in that room is.”

Oh god, this was really happening.

“How about we make a new memory to associate with it then?” asked John, and leaned down to kiss Sherlock, his heart beating in his chest.

Sherlock let out a quiet sigh and kissed him back, his hands coming up to pull John down close, gripping at his shoulders.

****

The tea got cold.

Later, much later, when John was making them a couple of fresh cups, he finally got around to asking, “So, what happened after I jumped?”

Sherlock didn't seem to want to put much distance between them and was hovering next to John, one hand casually resting on John's hip as he went about setting teabags in mugs.

“He disappeared,” he said. “You were right – without you there, he didn't have any access. He was gone the moment you woke up.”

John nodded. “We'll have to hope we don't have the same dream again, then.”

Sherlock sighed. “Don't be ridiculous, John. We're going to do far more than that – your mind is still wide open to him, after all. I hardly want him to consume any your memories. No, once we have some tea, I'm going to spend the rest of the day teaching you to make your own Mind Palace, so you can keep him out.”

John grinned at the idea. “A Mind Fortress.”

“Exactly,” said Sherlock, and leaned in to kiss John. “And I'll have to do some remodelling,” he added. “I think perhaps the sex room will need to be brought out of the basement and enlarged a bit.”

John grinned. That sounded like an excellent plan.


End file.
